School uniform - I agree with uniform and I realise I chose a school with a uniform policy, BUT ....

[BigSandyBalls2015]

.... sometimes I feel they are making a mountain out of a mole hill, and wasting too much time and energy on it:

DD(14), wore a collared white school shirt yesterday, top button done up, with a skirt, and we had a letter home.

She should have worn her open neck white shirt, as she had a skirt on. Had she worn trousers then the buttoned up collared shirt would have been fine, with a tie. Not allowed to mix the two.

Detention will be given if it happens again.

Only another 16 months to go ...................

gilees its not bizzare i just think girls should look like little girls and not tomboys .but as i said its only my opinion

And why dont girls look like girls in trousers.

Watch out! The wormhole to the 1950s has opened up again!

"girls should look like little girls and not tomboys"

WTF?

long hair - check
pink ribbons -check
frozen backpack- check
trousers - shit how am I supposed to tell whether it's a girl now

Watch out! The wormhole to the 1950s has opened up again!

PMSL

Our school uniform is lovely, navy trousers or skirt, taran kilt and blazer optional, red or navy jumper/cardigan and red or blue summer dress any time of the year. White skirt with tie or polo shirt any shoes/boots allowed.

My DD went off today quite happily in her red summer dress, red cardigan and red Doc Martens. Red is her favourite colour.

My primary school didn't have a uniform - I usually wore school pinafores anyway, but some days I wore trousers. I don't think anyone worried whether I looked like a girl or not. Maybe on the really cold days at high school when I was shivering in tights and skirt I should have consoled myself that at least I looked feminine. The school did eventually agree that we could travel in wearing trousers, but we were supposed to change after that.

Im sure I read somewhere that there is a correlation between uniform standard and educational attainment. The correlation being that the stricter the uniform, the worse the exam results.

marniasum what do the rest of Europe do then for rebellion as the schools don't have uniform?

ivy
what do the rest of Europe do then for rebellion as the schools don't have uniform?

the usual, smoking on the playground. not doing homework. car/bike racing.

plenty opportunities to rebell!

Pounding, the only research done into uniform was about introducing it into US Charter Schools when the children have come from completely dysfunctional and disorganised prior educational and family backgrounds. It had a minor effect on school discipline. Other than that, it has no more effect on learning than if you got everyone to cut their hair short or only use Staedler pencils or wear lace-ups rather than velcro shoes. No verifiable effect int educational attainment that you can isolate, whatsoever.

In fact a bunch of us are thinking about applying for funding to prove that, but we reckoned it would involve getting a school to drop uniform regulations for five years in some kind of ethnographic experiment, and the buggers are so wedded to uniform as some kind of emblematic symbol and recruitment tool, we don't think any governing body could be persuaded to go along with it.

I understand its more of a tradition type of thing than anything else, so people make up all sorts of bullshit to believe in.

It's rooted in aping independent schools, which in turn ape Oxford and Cambridge colleges, which in turn have aspects of formal dress that date back to the 1920s and medieval times, apparently no other period.

Bloody odd really.

I mean, what possible cognitive advantage could there be to wearing a 1920s boating blazer to school as a form of fancy dress? It's practically worthy of World Book Day FFS.

This is an interesting article.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/the-politics-of-the-school-uniform-2346367.html

Oh dear, I'm wearing trousers, no-one will be able to tell I'm a little ladee

BoffinMum presumably you could also do country comparisons, although that wouldnt pick up the effect of introducing uniform.

Apart from smoking there seems to be pitifully little in the way of rebellion at my DD's French high school. There's no uniform and almost everyone dresses practically (jeans, trainers).

So schools that banned u iforms are getting better results..interesting

Thing is, there's no research. They get parents to spend all this money and exclude kids for days at a time for wearing the wrong thing, based on, well, nothing, nada, no educational science at all.

My cousins went here and it's a much better uniform IMO

Indeed, Mistigri. I went with DD's class to an outing at the Louvre yesterday. 24 eleven year olds dressed in jeans, trainers and parkers. Practical, clean, warm, tidy. A non event.

parkas

That's pretty much what both mine wear to school every day: jeans, shirt or t-shirt, jumper.